On the whole, he had not made a favourable impression on Joyce Meredith. But what did it matter, now? He had come out to their camp, many miles away from the Station, post-haste to save her child, and for that she was thankful. All memory of the doctor's bad manners was forgotten when she saw him enter the tent with her husband, a strong virile being, from his keen eyes and locked lips to his brisk tread;—God's own agent to cure her babe; a blessed healer of the sick, to whom the mysteries of the human frame were revealed; who could fight even death!
"Oh, Doctor," she cried piteously, the tears like great dewdrops on her lashes: "Baby has been so bad—I thought, once, I had lost him!"
Without formal greetings, Dalton passed to the cot, and stooping over it, began his examination of the case.
Appreciating the reproof conveyed by his silence, the little mother sat still while the examination proceeded, answering in tremulous tones the crisp, short questions hurled at her from time to time.
By and by, when a certain drug had been administered and there was nothing to be done but wait for its effects to be apparent, he abruptly turned his attention to herself. Had she eaten anything? What had she fed on for the past twenty-four hours? He covered her wrist with his hand, studied her highly nervous face for a full minute, and then ordered her away to bed.
"Take her out of this, Meredith, if you wish to avoid having two invalids on your hands. Is there another bed anywhere?"
Meredith's own occupied the dressing-tent, since he was obliged to give up sharing his wife's on account of the baby's claim to the services of an ayah.
"But, Doctor, I am not ill!" Joyce protested feebly, realising however now, that it was mentioned, that a collapse was imminent.
"You'll do as we think best," he said shortly, "or I had better get out."
"Who is to look after Baby?" she asked faintly.